Instrument Training at night? Good Idea or not?

wrote in
:

I've run LEDs directly from AA's and found that without a bit of
current
limiting they tend to damage themselves. Perhaps the AAA has a bit
more internal resistance or the LEDs you chose are a little more
resilient or slightly different material and operating voltage.

I don't know. I've been using this light for several years with no ill
effects.

In any event, I agree that a headlamp would be nice... haven't
rigged one up
yet. Trouble with all the commercial LED lights I've seen is that
they're set up to be like regular flashlights. You know... flood the
area with as much light as possible. That'll wreck any night vision
in a heartbeat. The single LED works great (as you've also found
out).

The headlight I have offers a choice of 2 focused white LEDs or a single
unfocused, unreflected LED, depending on the switch position. It's bog-
standard, except that it came with a red LED which switched for a green
one. Red light makes reading charts and LCD-based too hard to read for
me. Also, it makes no sense to me to use red light when the instrument
lights are white anyway. The human eye is most sensitive to green light,
so you need less of it to make things visible.

--
Regards,

Stan

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin

"Mark T. Dame" wrote in :

I have a friend who gets vertigo so bad in actual (but not with the
foggles) that if he flies into IMC, he'll put on his foggles.
Everyone is affected differently. Which is why you want your first
experience in it to be with an experienced instructor.

I certainly agree with this. But the sad fact is that most instructors,
both CFI and CFII, don't have adequate experience. This isn't likely to
change, either, given the economics of the field.

--
Regards,

Stan

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin

: one. Red light makes reading charts and LCD-based too hard to read for
: me. Also, it makes no sense to me to use red light when the instrument
: lights are white anyway. The human eye is most sensitive to green light,
: so you need less of it to make things visible.

My aircraft has red cabin illumination, but with the dimmer it can be turned
*way* down. Between that and the tiny green LED light, you can even make out some
semblance of color.

I think I read somewhere that the red/green debate is that red light damages
night vision the least. That's a fact. Turns out, what's more important to
preserving night vision is the *amount* of light. Since the eye is most sensitive to
green, it can be at a lower level than red and still be useful.

My completely anecdotal experiences have bourne this out.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************

Stan Gosnell wrote:

"Mark T. Dame" wrote in :

I certainly agree with this. But the sad fact is that most instructors,
both CFI and CFII, don't have adequate experience. This isn't likely to
change, either, given the economics of the field.

Very true. I was fortunate in that one of the three instructors that I
took instrument training with was experienced and competent flying IMC.
He's the one I flew with the first time I flew in actual IMC.

I had three instructors during my training for exact that reason. My
primary instrument instructor is a very competent pilot and good at
teaching techniques, but he's a "weather wimp". He got a corporate job
and quit after a few months because he wasn't comfortable flying in
actual IMC. (Now he's a dispatcher for a regional airline, so he
doesn't have to worry about it.) Since I knew I wasn't going to get any
quality IMC time with him, I flew with a couple of other guys for that.
I think my primary instructor was secretly relieved that he didn't
have to do that part!


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## VP, Product Development
## MFM Software, Inc. (http://www.mfm.com/)
"...he began by assuring me that it was actually pretty simple -- a
promise engineers always make just before they start speaking in
tongues."
-- J. Kluger, Discover, Aug. 1993